It's not who you know, it's where you live." That would seem to be the lesson for students waiting for grant payments: a survey has shown a wide disparity between the times cheques from different grant-awarding authorities arrive.

The survey, conducted by the DIT Independent, showed that while Meath County Council started paying up on September 9th, Dublin Corporation cheques did not start until November 15th. The corporation denies this, saying it sent out a few in late October and around 1,000 on November 5th but that still leaves an effective time difference of nearly two months.

The majority of the State's 66 grant-awarding bodies annually distribute their first-term cheques to universities and colleges by the second week in October. While many corporations and county councils did manage to get this year's grants out on time, there were considerable delays from a number of authorities.

Dublin Corporation is joined in the sin bin by Wexford and Tipperary: cheques from there only started in the last third of October.

John Freeney of Dublin Corporation says the scale of the task facing the corporation is one reason for the delay. "We have about 800 new students each year - there is no way they are going to get all their cheques together."

Freeney says matters were not helped by the fact that grant-scheme forms were issued by the Department of Education later this year than in previous years, pushing deadlines back and having a knock-on effect. As far as he is concerned, the earlier these forms are given out, the better. "We would be advocating that the scheme would be issued in April or May of each year," he says. As well as simply being earlier and avoiding rushes on bodies such as the Revenue Commissioners, this would have the advantage of giving teachers the chance to help pupils fill the forms in.

The Department admits there was a delay in issuing the scheme this year and that the forms were available from July instead of June. However it says this is because the scheme itself was being restructured to make the forms easier to complete.

The Department did not wish to cast aspersions on any awarding body when speaking with Campus Times but the DIT Independent quoted a Department source as saying the delay with the scheme should not have resulted in a delay for Dublin Corporation (and by implication, other late payers) in distributing its grant cheques.

"Dates of issue were slightly later this year, but as other awarding bodies were able to cope, there is no reason why Dublin Corporation should have had a problem," he is quoted as saying.

USI's education officer, Ian Russell, says renewal applicants (i.e. those students who have already held a grant for one year) should still have got their cheques in the first week of term, as the change from June to July in the issuing of scheme forms would not have affected their claims.

First-time applicants do usually have to wait a week or two longer, but, he says, "at the end of the day people have to live on this money. A delay of this length is unacceptable for any student."